Inhuming For Humanity, or The Charity Ball
by Annalibelle
Summary: Every Year the Guilds of Anhk-Morpork throw a charity ball, with the proceeds going to...well charity. Unfortunately with guilds like the Seamstresses Guild and the Assassins Guild things can get a little bit... interesting.
1. Chapter 1

The Charity Ball or Inhuming for Humanity

Note: All Characters belong to the great Terry Pratchet of course. Also, I have not read the Assassin's Guild Diaries and such, so I might be off on a few details, please forgive me.

Starring:

Assassins –Various

Guild Leaders –Various

A Commander Samuel Vimes –Singular

And A Touch Of Vetinari

"You smell of Agatean takeaway." Lady T'malia commented as she held her nose. Asking for T'malia's help in dressing was almost as risky as dining with her. Admittedly, dining with Lady T'malia was likely to cost you your life; while asking fashion advice of her only ripped your pride to shreds. (1) Unfortunately for Soh Long (2), _Junior Assistant Minor Deputy Professor of Physiology and Pharmaceuticals of Various Sorts_, Lady T'malia was one of the few other female masters at the Assassin's Guild. She couldn't very well ask, say Lord Downey, for advice on ball gowns.

"I would give you the c-mail of my corsetieres, but a mere thirty two attendants wouldn't… ahem… do justice to your waist." Her "ahem" was frostily polite and sarcastic; in a way that only the very refined could manage. "And I say this in pure friendliness, of course; everyone at the Ball will know that you're not a _real_ assassin so you won't have to worry about keeping up appearances. Why, any of _us_ would be far too busy to dance a night away. Now chop-chop, off with that horrible Omnian missionary dress. Is that thing even black? It looks rather...grey. "

**...**

(1) Provided you didn't ask to borrow one of her many rather pretty, poison filled, but still very pretty rings.

(2)An apt name for an assassin, but unfortunately, Soh Long was a bit of a misnomer. She was infamous in a sad, mousy way for being the only Assassin to have never inhumed anyone, and she was secretly glad of the fact.

...

"Willikins! Get out the funny tights and the spiky hat, will you?" Sam Vimes (err sorry, _His Grace the Duke of Ankh Sir Commander_ Sam Vimes) called out as he slammed an old (oops, _antique_) mahogany door and tracked dirt on the ancient (dreadfully apologetic, _heirloom_) rug.

"The ducal coronet and the ducal dress uniform are in your dressing room. Would sir allow me to run a bath?" Was the perfectly composed, butler-y response from Willikins.

Vimes had to go to another ball to night. Only it wasn't just a ball, it was the Ball with a capital B, of course. The gods damned Guilds' Charity Ball. _Blast Nobby for starting that Watchmen's Guild! _He thought violently, in a way that only an unrefined Vimes could manage. The "Charity" bit of the Ball came in when each guild auctioned off something distinctive. _What are we supposed to sell, a "get out of lockup free pass"?_

**…**

Balls. (1) Generally defined as confections of dancing, politeness, tinkly music, having one's foot stepped upon, and stuffiness. Quite strangely, they are considered a quite pleasant way to spend an evening. Classiness just addles the brain like that.

"Look here, Mr. Vimes! We got that Get Out of Lockup pass all done up like you asked. It even has the fake-gold-that-doesn't-really-look-like-gold stuff on the sides."

Sometimes all you can do is sigh and get on with life. Sigh.

**...**

(1) No, not that kind of Balls you horrible lowclass person!


	2. Snow Daze

"Lady Selachii, have you figured out who the unfortunate poor actually _are_ yet?" Duchess Sybil Ramkin asked. The Ladies Who Organize organize everything of course, but they directly organized the Guild Charity Ball, it was just the Thing To Do.

Ledy Selachii sighed, "It wouldn't be so bad if the poor were more… clean. They're all just so disreputable and sticky. If only we can find the more respectable ones…"

"Well we'll give the money to the Free Hospital then, no sense in it just lying around," Sybil said in her most efficient, most Ramkin-y voice.

…

**The Ankh Morpork Times**

_The Truth Shall Make Ye Freeze_

**Coldest Winter on the Disc **

**Says Rincewind, 57, Wizzard of Unseen University**

Well-traveled professor Of Cruel and Unusual Geography says "What do you lot want? If it's me going off somewhere _interesting_ again then forget it. "

**Expect Eight Hundred to Twenty Thousand Feet of Precipitation**

**Including Some Snow**

**…**

Somewhere in a nice warm house, Samuel Vimes recalled a not so pleasant cold drafty (but very clean) little house (1). The weather outside was mildly alarming, on the verge of becoming frightful. And Blackboard Monitor Vimes recited the traditional prayer for a snow day. He rattled a stuck drawer and chanted, _Oh please gods let there be no school… erm no Ball today… please? _

(1) It was most definitely a house and not a flat. One had_ Standards_ on Cockbill Street. Your house could be vertically, horizontally and diagonally challenged but you couldn't raise a family in a flat could you?

**…**

Monarchies are rather nice, safe and traditional and _romantic. _Democracies make everyone feel special. But things get DONE in a dictatorship. (1) The snow removal teams (drafted of course) were moving along rather well thanks to Leonard's it-melts-snow-machine.

Of course things work better when there's a Captain Carrot as well as a stick.

"C'mon there's a good chap now. Keep on digging we'll get to the roof tops eventually! Keep at it, um… good chaps!" The best bit of it was that Carrot truly believed that everyone _was_ a good chap on the inside.

"Oh there's a toe here, would that be yours Reg?" The zombie checked himself all over but found he had his correct number of toes. (2)

"I believe it is mine Captain Ironfoundersson," came the dry, brittle voice of Mr. Slant, a lawyer so old he was legal precedent in himself. (3) He wasn't shoveling of course, he had paralegals for that.

"Thanks for coming out and doing your civic duty sir!" Responded Carrot.

(1) A benevolent dictatorship of course. There was enough to do all ready without having to go around not tolerating everything.

(2) Not ten necessarily…

(3) Contrary to popular belief, lawyers, most lawyers, have souls. As for the differently alive ones… well he's got to have something living on inside him.

**…**

**The Sto Lat Herald**

**City Trapped By Snow **

**Mayor, 42, Says "The Ankh Morporkians **

**Would Never have Canceled Foot-The-Ball Game**."

Newly appointed Lord Mayor says "Not only would Ankh Morporkians have not Canceled the Foot-The-Ball game, they would have walked to the game while shoveling streets and inventing a new form of 'rithmetic."

Sto Lat citizens reply, "So does this mean we can sack you for this?"

**…**

Assassins don't like snow. First of all, you can call white on black "modish" all you want, but it really is such a dreadful color combination. Snow crunches. It leaves imprints. It's messy and gets water marks on velvet and stains. Most importantly, It's Just Not Classy. It's positively crass-y. Inhuming a target without leaving a mark is subtle, understated, and timeless. Even inhuming one's target, and all his family, and the servants, and the dogs, and the neighbors, and the neighbor's dogs is acceptable. A bit quaint and old fashioned, seen as too ostentatious nowadays, but still on this side of acceptable. But tracking snow all over the inhumed client's carpet? Simply unacceptable.

Author's Note:

So yup I don't own anything…Anyways, In case you aren't in the U.S./ live somewhere south of the Mason Dixon line, the northern U.S. has had unusual amounts of snow this winter. Like ten times normal actually. The Sto Lat quote is a paraphrase of what the Governor of Pennsylvania said, "Chinese residents would have marched to the stadium, and done calculus all the way down!" in response to an Eagles game being canceled. (This is American football by the way, the one that doesn't use so much foot)


End file.
